Like You Reached Right Into My Head and Turned on the Light Inside

Somehow, simply by posting this article, I'm fulfilling Brian Stelter's prophecy.

No idea what I'm talking about? Keep reading.

According to interviews and recent surveys, younger voters tend to be not just consumers of news and current events but conduits as well — sending out e-mailed links and videos to friends and their social networks. And in turn, they rely on friends and online connections for news to come to them. In essence, they are replacing the professional filter — reading The Washington Post, clicking on CNN.com — with a social one.

“There are lots of times where I’ll read an interesting story online and send the U.R.L. to 10 friends,” said Lauren Wolfe, 25, the president of College Democrats of America. “I’d rather read an e-mail from a friend with an attached story than search through a newspaper to find the story.”

In one sense, this social filter is simply a technological version of the oldest tool in politics: word of mouth. Jane Buckingham, the founder of the Intelligence Group, a market research company, said the “social media generation” was comfortable being in constant communication with others, so recommendations from friends or text messages from a campaign — information that is shared, but not sought — were perceived as natural.

Ms. Buckingham recalled conducting a focus group where one of her subjects, a college student, said, “If the news is that important, it will find me.”

Also, something that is sure to drive my Dad crazy...the Facebook/My Space friend stats for the various candidates (also found in the Stelter piece):

• Barack Obama-1,000,000 (combined)
• Hillary Rodham Clinton- 330,000 (combined)
• John McCain- 140,000 (combined)

Somehow, I think John McCain doesn't give a second thought to websites like Facebook and My Space, and frankly, I think that's a good thing. He's the kind of guy who always seemed more closely suited to the 19th century rather than the 21st. We will see in November if the American electorate thinks that is an asset or a liability.